Long Beach: Tyler McQuarrie Friday report

McQuarrie raises eyebrows in opening World Challenge session

April 17, 2010 (Long Beach, Calif.) -- In the lone World Challenge practice session held on Friday, Formula Drift driver Tyler McQuarrie, from Pleasant Hill, Calif. surprised the World Challenge paddock with his pace in the LPL/DRS/SwitchCars.com Lotus Exige S.

Despite being mired in traffic throughout the session, and a lengthy pause in the session due to a red flag, McQuarrie was able to hang on to P2 until the checkered in a competitive GTS class. Only multi-time series champion Peter Cunningham was able to turn a lap time quicker than McQuarrie.

"More than anything, being quick out of the box is a great thing for the crew that has worked extremely hard to get this LPL/DRS.Switchcars.com Lotus ready for World Challenge," said McQuarrie. "Since this was the first appearance of the car in World Challenge, we just wanted to stay out of trouble and learn about how the car works on this track. We learned quite a bit, but we also realized that the team had done their homework since the car was very good from the beginning."

As this race weekend marks the first appearance for McQuarrie, as well as the first appearance for the Exige S in World Challenge's GTS class, the first practice left the team full of confidence for the rest of the weekend. While the Exige S excelled in the right confines of the Long Beach Grand Prix circuit, McQuarrie also excelled in the concrete canyons of the track -- no doubt due to his experience in drifting on the same course, inside the same walls.

"It's like flipping a switch, going from drifting here last week to driving the Lotus this week," said McQuarrie. "After spending all of last weekend scraping the walls with my back bumper, driving this car is almost like a piece of cake. It feels great to get back into a road race car, especially in the Long Beach Grand Prix. I can't wait for qualifying."

-source: www.tylermcquarrie.com.